Most Texans don’t believe humans are causing global warming

There’s an interesting new survey out from the Yale Project on Climate Change (see .pdf report) that provides information specifically about Texans’ views on global warming.

At first blush, the results are promising for advocates of action on climate change, as 70 percent of Texans believe global warming is happening.

(Yale Project on Climate Change)

This, from a conservative state with deep oil interests that is led by politicians who espouse views that are skeptical of climate change.

However, when we dig deeper into the report the results are not so clear cut. For example, when asked what is causing global warming, just 44 percent replied that humans are “mostly causing” global warming.

(Yale Project on Climate Change)

And here’s the killer, in my opinion. Nearly half of Texans believe “there is a lot of disagreement among scientists about whether or not global warming is happening.”

(Yale Project on Climate Change)

While it is true that there are a handful of climate and atmospheric scientists who hold skeptical views about global warming, the vast majority of the scientific community is in agreement that the planet is warming, and that human activity is the primary driver.

Regardless of what you believe about climate change, and I know many of you are deeply skeptical, this is a fact that is simply not in dispute. Scientists may argue about the details – how much will the planet continue to warm? – but they by and large agree on the big picture. Planet warming. Humans causing.

Disagree with that? How many atmospheric scientists at Texas universities are skeptics? Answer: none.

Frank Luntz, a pollster who outlined a strategy to Republicans some 15 years ago to slow or stop the regulation of greenhouse gases: “You need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate.”

86 Responses

We listen to Aggie Yell Leaders and 3rd rate attorneys when it comes to medical procedures such as abortion (as opposed to Doctors) so why would this come as any surprise? There’s a reason oil companies have to go outside of Texas to recruit. We just ain’t the brightest here.

A perfect example of public education today. Plant photosynthesis takes CO2 out of the air and combines it with energy(sunlight) and water to produce sugar and OXYGEN. The O2 is then realesed back into the air.

Plant photosynthesis takes CO2 out of the air and combines it with energy(sunlight) and water to produce sugar and OXYGEN.

During the day. At night, those same plants take oxygen out of the atmosphere and combine it with the sugars to fuel their metabolism.

What makes plants net carbon negative (for short periods of time, anyway) is that some of the carbon they extract from the environment goes into forming cellulose which is then sequestered until the plant dies and decays (releasing the carbon back into the environment).

Consider the emmissions from internal combustion engines and factories and the the petro-chem industry to name just several sources of heat. There are other sources as well. This is heat released into the environment that wasn’t there before it got created and released. Wouldn’t that just about have to contribute to some degree of warming?

Don’t get me wrong, I love the freedom to go where I want, when I want in my car or motorcycle or fly somewhere on vacation but I do wonder what we might be doing to the environment and yes I agree a couple of large main event volcanoes might spew out in a week what we do in a decade. I also believe that China, India and a few other countries are decades behind us in doing what we can to mitigate harmful emmissions.

Every time I see something about global warming now, I think of BBC 4′s In Our Time (Melvyn Bragg). He did a panel discussion called Ice Ages (Feb 14, 2013) which is still available on their website.

The panel are all scientists at UK universities (paleoclimatology, palaeoceanography and earth sciences). According to them, we are in an interglacial which only occurs during an icehouse earth – meaning we have glaciers. According to them, the other type of earth (greenhouse earth) is predominant. Eighty five percent of earth’s history has been spent in greenhouse earth conditions.

Given that, I’d say we are in a very rare time geologically in earth’s history. Is the earth warming? Sure it is; most of the time it is much, much hotter on this planet.

For the record, it was a fascinating discussion on climate in general and I certainly learned a lot.

Those of you who think it is impossible for a small added amount of carbon dioxide to cause a long term warming trend, think of a seesaw. At one end you have giant sumo wrestler, Mr. Warming Forcing Agent. On the other end we have his mirror image identical twin, Mr. Cooling Forcing Agent. All things being equal and with a frictionless magnetic axel, seesaw may wobble, but nothing happens. Put a feather on one end and that end goes down.

Geeze, who writes these headlines? They should be fired.
The chart does NOT show that most Texans do not believe in global warming.
44% definitely do. 11% believe it is caused by BOTH, which means they DO believe humans have something to do with it, and 8% don’t know, which means they neither believe nor disbelieve. How can the remainder be ‘MOST’?
Somebody is using awfully funny math.

In feeble defense of Eric, SciGuy has been relatively slow to come around to acknowledging the scientific facts of man-caused climate change, but come around he has. Although, if you listen intently during the wee hours, you may still detect echoes of muffled kicking & screaming.

And, if a new study attempts to shed any doubt, credible or otherwise, on the science, you can get better than even odds that SciGuy will most conservatively headline or mislede it.

However, unlike the oil shills & whack jobs who brandish influence & notoriety within the GOP, he doesn’t deny the climate science but has been known to circumlocute its progressively obvious conclusions.

“Annual fossil fuel CO2 emissions have shot up in the past decade at about 3% yr-1, double the rate of the prior three decades (figure 1). The growth rate falls above the range of the IPCC (2001) ‘Marker’ scenarios, although emissions are still within the entire range considered by the IPCC SRES (2000). The surge in emissions is due to increased coal use (blue curve in figure 1), which now accounts for more than 40% of fossil fuel CO2 emissions.”

“The principal implication of our present analysis probably relates to the Faustian bargain. Increased short-term masking of greenhouse gas warming by fossil fuel particulate and nitrogen pollution represents a ‘doubling down’ of the Faustian bargain, an increase in the stakes. The more we allow the Faustian debt to build, the more unmanageable the eventual consequences will be. Yet globally there are plans to build more than 1000 coal-fired power plants (Yang and Cui 2012) and plans to develop some of the dirtiest oil sources on the planet (EIA 2011). These plans should be vigorously resisted. We are already in a deep hole—it is time to stop digging.”

Really Eric, why do continue to use the trite statement, “the vast majority of the scientific community is in agreement that the planet is warming, and that human activity is the primary driver.” Just who comprises this “VAST” majority?

Even the current IPCC report final draft contains the fact that GW has been stagnate for the past 15 years, and they are dumbfounded to explain why. Yet, they continue to follow the incorrect results from their models in so as not to admit that they might have been wrong. What’s interesting is that the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia published a report last year that said exactly that, but was completely ignored by the MMGW crowd.

And then, you follow with this, “this is a fact that is simply not in dispute…Planet warming. Humans causing.” Not in dispute? Apart from the utter arrogance of such a comment, it shows why and how the MMGW crowd, downplay the scientific efforts disproving MMGW.

I doubt there are many climatologists and atmospheric scientists who could quote the Laws of Thermodynamics let alone explain why their pet theory of GW violates the 1st and 2nd laws. That requires a major disertation with some fairly complicated higher math.

Of course, these are the same people who gave physical properties to CO2 in order to make it a “greenhouse gas” which violate the known properties that it has.

Think about this and get back to me. Somethign simple to start. The density of CO2 gas at STP is 1.96 g/l. The density of air at STP is 1.2929 g/l. Given the current concentration of CO2 is roughly 400 ppm, what does that indicate? How does this affect the MMGW theory?

Now, try this on for size. The thermal conductivity of air is roughly double that of CO2, 2.4 kW/m K vs. 1.24 kW/m K. Using the concentration of CO2 shown above, calculate the relative rates of heat retention.

Let’s add a littel astronomy. Assume that at some point during their orbits, the Earth and its moon are exactly the same distance from the sun. What are the average daytime surface temperatures on each and why?

I hesitate to dignify this post with a response but I feel it necessary. The STP density of gases and their thermal conductivity are irrelevant to any conversation about the earth’s heat balance. All heat comes in as light and leaves as light. Only the spectra of the gases matter.

A simple Google search on infrared spectra of molecular gases shows that CO2 blocks some frequencies of infrared that pass through nitrogen gas. Thee atmosphere is not a uniform slab of material either.

If you have enough “advanced math” to do Newton’s laws then you can easily do a simple Freshman Physics homework question: as a function of density what is the mean free path of a one micrometer photon in pure nitrogen? Repeat for mixes including CO2 at 200 and 400 ppm.

When I did this problem it was immediately clear that a meaningful amount of energy is trapped by CO2. Try it yourself.

“There’s also a tendency for some [birds] just to concentrate on air temperatures when there are other, more useful, indicators that can perhaps give us a better idea how rapidly the world is warming. Oceans for instance — due to their immense size and heat storing capability (called ‘thermal mass’) — tend to give a much more ‘steady’ indication of the warming that is happening. Here records show that the Earth has been warming at a steady rate before and since 1998 and there’s no signs of it slowing any time soon.”

“Overall, when considering OHC data to a depth of 2,000 meters, as well as land, atmosphere, and ice heating, our results are consistent with the previous studies referenced above, most of which consider OHC to 2,000 meters. We find no evidence that the global flux imbalance has declined significantly in recent years, or that the CO2 feedback is negative or inconsistent with climate models.”

Corey’s reponse is the very essence of the thermodynamics errors. He also fails on the CO2 properties part by ignoring density separation of CO2 and the volumetric dispersion of the concentration of CO2.

Ianvs, has to begin his reply with a insult even though my comment on GW stagnation came straight out of the IPCC final draft. Yet, further down the comments, Jackalope quotes an AP article teh Chron carried that also contains comments on GW stagnation in the IPCC report.

Given the current concentration of CO2 is roughly 400 ppm, what does that indicate? How does this affect the MMGW theory?

Here’s a thought – put CO2 into a container at 400 ppm and test the absorbance spectrum. Do it again at a CO2 level of 100 ppm. Explain the difference in the two spectra.

Using the concentration of CO2 shown above, calculate the relative rates of heat retention.

You make a fundamental mistake here. CO2 does not hold the heat; it reduces the rate at which heat can escape. That’s why many climatologists refer to Co2 acting in much the same way that a blanket or a jacket does.

Assume that at some point during their orbits, the Earth and its moon are exactly the same distance from the sun. What are the average daytime surface temperatures on each and why?

I’m glad you brought in the blackbody temperature because it demonstrates exactly why there is no scientific dispute about the effect of increased CO2 on the atmosphere.

If you honestly want to understand the science, best listen to the NASA climate scientists who are responsible for monitoring our climate.

“The current warming trend is of particular significance because most of it is very likely human-induced and proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented in the past 1,300 years.

Earth-orbiting satellites and other technological advances have enabled scientists to see the big picture, collecting many different types of information about our planet and its climate on a global scale. Studying these climate data collected over many years reveal the signals of a changing climate.”

“The industrial activities that our modern civilization depends upon have raised atmospheric carbon dioxide levels from 280 parts per million to 379 parts per million in the last 150 years. The panel also concluded there’s a better than 90 percent probability that human-produced greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have caused much of the observed increase in Earth’s temperatures over the past 50 years.”

gee, Eric, most of the folks who wrote the IPCC crap aren’t climate scientists. The head of that fiasco is a railway engineer and part time softporn writer. I think Neil Frank is infinitely more qualified.

“In 23 June 2010 the IPCC announced the release of the final list of selected coordinating lead authors, comprising 831 experts who are drawn from fields including meteorology, physics, oceanography, statistics, engineering, ecology, social sciences and economics.”

From the AP: “Scientists working on a landmark U.N. report on climate change are struggling to explain why global warming appears to have slowed down in the past 15 years even though greenhouse gas emissions keep rising.
Leaked documents obtained by The Associated Press show there are deep concerns among governments over how to address the issue ahead of next week’s meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.”
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So basically a scientific theory was put to the test and found wanting. Perhaps while the scientists and UN are at it, they can explain why we haven’t seen the 10 million people displaced yet from rising oceans, why Arctic ice is the most it’s been in years, and why drilling ice cores in Greenland found (gasp!) green land (meaning it was warmer centuries ago compared to today).

Climatologists have long argued that there are many factors to climate change and that some of them may temporarily “swamp” the anthropogenic signal. But they have also argued that the long-term trend (i.e., over fifty years or more) due to increases in CO2 would be upward. Thus far, they’ve been right.

Perhaps while the scientists and UN are at it, they can explain why we haven’t seen the 10 million people displaced yet from rising oceans,

Care to point to the scientist who made that prediction?

why Arctic ice is the most it’s been in years,

Because it isn’t; it is actually near the low end of the normal range.

why drilling ice cores in Greenland found (gasp!) green land (meaning it was warmer centuries ago compared to today)

“In both the Book of Icelanders (Íslendingabók)–a medieval account of Icelandic history from the 12th century onward—and the Icelandic saga, The Saga of Eric the Red (Eiríks saga rauða)–a medieval account of his life and of the Norse settlement of Greenland—it is written, “He named the land Greenland, saying that people would be eager to go there if it had a good name.”

“1. Wind deployment – … the cost of electricity from wind has fallen to around 5 cents per kilowatt-hour — a 90 percent drop since the 1980s. In 2012, wind was the single largest source of new electricity capacity in the U.S., beating even natural gas.”

“2. Solar photovoltaic (PV) deployment – … there is now a solar PV system installed in America every four minutes, up from every 80 minutes in 2006. … the cost of a solar module in 2012 is 1 percent of what it cost 35 years ago.”

“3. LED Deployment – … the cost of producing an LED relative to the cost of raw materials has declined by 25 percent each year. This leads some experts to conclude that LEDs may represent 80 percent of all new lighting by 2020… With 20 million deployed today, that number has increased by a factor of 50.”

“4. Electric vehicle (EV) deployment – … In the first half of this year, sales of electric vehicles have already been more than double the total of all sales throughout the entirety of 2012. In California, Tesla is outselling high-end cars like Porsches, Lincolns, Land Rovers and Jaguars. … the DOE reports that the cost of manufacturing an EV battery has dropped by 50 percent since 2008.”

Unlike you & doc, we don’t spout; we merely explain & back it up with facts, admittedly accompanied by some attitude, whenever so righteously deserved.

“Germany is the world’s top photovoltaics (PV) installer, with a solar PV capacity of 34.499 gigawatts (GW) at the end of July 2013.[2] The German new solar PV installations increased by about 7.6 GW in 2012, and solar PV provided 18 TWh (billion kilowatt-hours) of electricity in 2011, about 3% of total electricity.[3] Some market analysts expect this could reach 25 percent by 2050.[4] Germany has a goal of producing 35% of electricity from renewable sources by 2020 and 100% by 2050.[5]“

You’re DARN RIGHT that Germany is leading the world in solar/wind energy. My point is that the people there (rightly) BLAME PRECISELY THAT for their sky-high power bills.

Since you don’t seem capable of doing a Google Search to see what I need, here are some links. Put your mouse pointer over them (one at a time) AND CLICK. That will take you to the PUBLISHED ARTICLES on the subject.

(but, like all liberals, you know all this…but you CANNOT admit it, since it TOTALLY HOSES your arguments)

No major audacious undertaking — like transforming an entire nation to a clean energy economy, defeating Nazi Germany, or putting a man on the moon — is without its complexities & challenges & setbacks, not to mention winners & losers. But exploring new worlds & preserving a livable climate for our children & grandchildren are more than just the rational thing to do; they are essential to the technological advancement, if not the existential well-being, of our species. So let’s get with the program, hombre, & drop the anti-science denial ere St. Pat has to banish another snake.

“It is great that we have achieved such a high percentage of renewable energy,” said Michael Hüther, director of the Cologne Institute for Economic Research. “But there are negative repercussions that we are now beginning to feel and must be addressed by the next government.”

Large offshore wind farms that have been built in Germany’s less populated north generate energy that must then be transported to industries and sites in the south….

Those turbines will probably not generate electricity until next year. Workers must still sweep the seafloor for abandoned World War II ordnance before a cable can be run to shore. “It’s really frustrating,” Ms. Lucke said. The delay threatens to add $27 million to the $608 million cost of the wind park.

Even without the energy the offshore turbines could produce, Germany’s power grid has been strained by new wind and solar projects on land, compelling the government to invest up to $27 billion over the next decade to build roughly 1,700 miles of high-capacity power lines and to upgrade lines.

The largely rural northern state of Schleswig-Holstein produces as much as 12,000 megawatts of power with new wind turbines and solar panels, but it can consume only about a sixth of that.

“Schleswig-Holstein is a microcosm for all of Germany,” said Markus Lieberknecht of the grid operator Tennet. “Where energy was previously brought into the state and distributed to small communities, these communities are now producing the power, and we need to find a way to transmit it to the larger urban areas. Everything has been stood on its head.”

Despite your childlike misconceptions, the 1st Amendment says nothing about what we can read or not. What home-school did you say you went to?

And, if you read more widely, or googled your wiki more often, you’d learn that Angela Merkel’s conservative administration planned & implemented the programs to replace nuclear power & substantially reduce CO2 emissions with renewable energy. And that she just got reelected, so she can continue to deal with the political hurdles & policy issues along her government’s progressive road to 45% renewables by 2030.

“By some estimates, renewables will provide about 14 percent of Germany’s gross electricity consumption by the end of this year, well ahead of official targets for 2010. As a result of this success, in July the German government increased its targets for renewable energy to 27 percent of electricity by 2020 (up from 20 percent) and at least 45 percent by 2030. Germany’s success with the feed-in law has also prompted several other countries around the world to adopt advanced feed-in laws. Just last month, a Michigan legislator was the first to introduce a true feed-in law in the United States.”

btw, do you have any idea of the potential costs & consequences of a nuclear plant meltdown to a modern economy the size of Germany? The Japanese do.

“The precise value of the abandoned cities, towns, agricultural lands, businesses, homes and property located within the roughly 310 sq miles (800 sq km) of the exclusion zones has not been established. Estimates of the total economic loss range from $250[iv]-$500[v] billion US. As for the human costs, in September 2012, Fukushima officials stated that 159,128 people had been evicted from the exclusion zones, losing their homes and virtually all their possessions. Most have received only a small compensation to cover their costs of living as evacuees. Many are forced to make mortgage payments on the homes they left inside the exclusion zones. They have not been told that their homes will never again be habitable.”

Considering these dire potential costs & consequences of nuclear accidents & the long-term economic & health benefits of clean renewable energy technologies over CO2 polluting coal-burners, we applaud Merkel’s conservative government & their aggressive transformation of Germany’s power generation systems, though there still be major challenges to get their power grid & storage systems up to speed, & the readjustment of their tariff & subsidy policies in place.

“The effort underway in Germany to transition the entire country—the industrial powerhouse of Europe—away from nuclear and fossil fuel-based energy sources in favor of renewables like wind and solar may be the most ambitious national energy strategy in the world. It is also one of the most fraught with challenges.”

“According to Section 1 para. 1 EEG 2012, the purpose of the law is to facilitate the sustainable development of energy supply, particularly for the sake of protecting the climate and the environment, to reduce the costs of energy supply to the national economy (also by incorporating external long-term effects), to conserve fossil fuels and to promote the further development of technologies for the generation of electricity from renewable energy sources. To this end, the Act aims to increase the share of renewable energy sources in the German electricity supply. According to Section 1 para. 2 EEG 2012, renewable energy shall account for 35% of the electricity production by 2020, for 50% by 2030, for 65% by 2040 and for 80% by 2050.“

Since you STILL haven’t addressed my links, I think that I’ll post them again.

Again, for others, the links INDICATE CLEARLY that Germany, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, cannot afford this “renewable utopia”, and is now doing all they can to get back to CONVENTIONAL, and affordable, energy. I’m sorry we have others here that distort what’s going on there because of their own agenda (likely special-interest driven, I may add).

What you have going on in Germany is pushback from their still powerful fossil fuel industry & allies, alleging threats to their competitiveness from cheaper shale gas, particularly in the U.S., even as their profits continue to soar, similar to the vested fossil fuel interests back here in the states.

However, if you bothered to follow the story & money, instead of parroting the anti-science rants on a Watts’ anti-science denier blog, you learn that Chancellor Angela Merkel’s legacy is the continued transformation of Germany to a clean energy economy sans nuclear power & coal.

It’s very interesting that Merkel & her centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) are ditching the Free Democrats (FDP) who lost big in the recent election & now looking to a possible coalition with the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), less so the Greens, to sure up her legacy by trading off modest cuts in incentives. They don’t call her the “black widow” for nothing. But rest assured, Chancellor Merkel, the leader of the most powerful economy in Europe, has the political clout (some say ‘cojones grandes’) to make the deals & enforce the policies necessary to ensure the competitiveness of German industry & continued investment in the development & deployment of renewable energies along with expansion & upgrade of Germany’s power grid.

“Merkel has long said that a reform of renewable subsidies, will be a top priority for a third term but it is a delicate balancing act to reduce feed-in tariffs to help industry, while ensuring investment in renewables does not grind to a halt.”

Germany, under Merkel’s conservative leadership, is showing the rest of the world how to boldly transform a world-class economy with clean, renewable, lo-carbon energy & lead in the 21st Century, with all the benefits & challenges of being first.

It’s amazing what one can learn when one ditches Watts & the anti-science denial, Daniel. Try it sometime.

ONCE AGAIN it looks as though you didn’t read my links, so I must repost. For others, it’s OBVIOUS that Germans are FED UP with leftists, like the clown here, that are trying to impose their version of SAVING THE WORLD on them – when REAL GERMANS have to make a living.

And by the way, my name is NOT Dan. Dan is the first name of your next Lt. Governor (in 2015) and next Governor (in 2019) – I just borrowed it. Sorry, but you will have to deal with a MUCH MORE POWERFUL principled conservative than myself. You might want to consider moving back to Boston before you go insane here.

The Earth has warmed and cooled forever, in OUR lifetime we will never know, if there is actually human caused global warming, and what caused it. You can bet people in the future will figure how to deal with it, if it is a problem. Early settlers thought did not understand lightning, the later generation figured it out. I’m all for conservation, but I don’t stress or worry over it. Besides, we have 6 billion people in China counter acting everything we do to keep the planet healthy.

1. Having a beginning &, no doubt, an end, the earth has not warmed & cooled forever; periodically, at distinct epochs in its development, caused by variations in its orbit or tilt or various solar or cataclysmic events, yes.

3. Early American settlers’ limited knowledge of atmospheric science notwithstanding, “Lightning [still] occurs approximately 40–50 times a second worldwide, resulting in nearly 1.4 billion flashes per year.[1]” You had a point there, no?

Once again Texans show the innate intelligence and instincts that make them the greatest state in the union. I really miss people like this, just try this survey in the People’s Republics of Kalifornia, Santa Fe, NM, or Portlandia.

“Californians have long been ahead of the pack in their support of climate policies, but in new polling, a “record-high majority” of California voters support immediate action by state and federal governments to arrest global warming and prepare for climate impacts.

According to the poll by the Public Policy Institute of California, most respondents (63 percent) believe those impacts are already being felt, and three-in-four (75 percent) support taking “steps to counter the effects of global warming right away.” PPIC analysts say that represents a spike of nine percentage points since its 2012 survey. About the same proportion consider the threat of global warming to be at least “somewhat serious.” Support for immediate climate action continues to track significantly higher among Democrats than Republicans, though the gap may be narrowing.”

“Rising sea level will pose increased hazards to coastal cities in various ways, especially the magnification of inundating storm surges that accompany hurricanes and other tropical storms.

The World Bank study, led by a senior economist at the institution and published in the scientific journal Nature Climate Change, projected that among the world’s 136 biggest coastal cities, Houston will have the seventh-largest percentage increase in average annual losses from sea-level rise by 2050. It’s the only U.S. city on a list of the 20 with the largest percentage increases worldwide.”

Adam, Houston won’t flood due to “global warming” any more than it would have during the much warmer “medieval warm” period. While parts of Houston are what some would call reclaimed swamp, unless sea levels jump twenty to fifty feet no one will notice a thing.

“We are here to ask for your help,” said Paul Fraim, Mayor of Norfolk, Virginia. “It is a threat we can no longer ignore.”

“The fact of the matter is, we’ve got rising waters,” Watkins added. “We’ve got recurrent flooding. There are more 100-year storms in the last 15 years than we’ve ever seen. Somebody has got to deal with it.”

Time for you & doc to get a grip on reality, Billyboy, before your cows come home to roost.

“All the while, Texas is laboring under the third-worst drought to hit the state since record keeping began in 1895 — and that’s after enduring a series of droughts in the 2000s.”

“It’s certainly good to see Perry and other Texas lawmakers moving to address their state’s challenges with concrete policies and investment. But it would certainly help if they actually came to grips with the climate change that’s going to keep making droughts drier, hotter, and longer with every passing decade.”

Eric,
This poll, like your article depends on carefully parsing the issue to sustain your point.
In real science, when predictions fail the theory is revisited.
In climate science when predictions fail, either those who made the predictions deny they made them, or they ignore the failure and scream louder.
It is illuminating that the AGW true believers still believe their magical bogey man “fossil fuel industry” is behind people’s skepticism, and not reality.
Australia just fired its AGW hypesters from government. Canada did it last year. The IPCC, which you and so many touted as the “gold standard” is in trouble with governments for noticing that the the models did not predict a statistically significant divergence from reality.
And instead you highlight a phony poll from an astroturf AGW hype organization designed to sell propaganda on global,warming doom.

Good points hunter, well said. The predictions of disaster, as in hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, droughts, etc. have all been shown to be bogus scare-mongering, but the left wing political scientists and their minions still repeat them and just scream louder, as you say. This is all about politics anyway, has been for several decades now, science is no longer involved in the “discussions”.

JohnD, Hunter and others conflate the predictions of climate scientists with the alarmist proclamations of people using science as a vehicle to push a political agenda. In the case of some like Hansen that is a blurry distinction. People will continue to resist climate science as long as it comes bundled with political nonsense that always boils down to some variation of, “You pay us and our cronies, and we get to ration the economy for everybody. You’re welcome.”

It does not matter if climate scientists are the source of political slant; it is still incumbent upon the scientists to shake off the parasites of politics if they want their message to be heard.

The earth is getting warmer.
The earth is facing a real crisis due to global warming.
The earth has gone through warming/cooling periods for eons.
Co2 is a greenhouse gas.
The vast majority of QUALIFED scientist believe man plays a big role in the current global warming crisis.
Volcanic activity, often named as a cause by skeptics, has a very long history here on planet earth. It is not a new phenoenon.
Citing what is happening/happened at one or two places, at one point in time tells us nothing, pro or con.
This issue should not be debated on what one wants to believe, but on facts.

To ignore man’s contribution is foolish. Since the dawn of the industrial age, man has vastly increased the CO2 released into the atmosphere. He has poisoned our streams, lakes and oceans, to the point where many no longer have a healthy algae balance that would help abate CO2 emissions. The dead areas of the lakes/oceans are growing worldwide. When the industrial age started, there were enough forest, grasslands, and healthy seas & waterways to abate the extra CO2. As man cut down more trees, plowed up native grasslands, overgrazed the stepps creating deserts, and poisoned our oceans, the planet no longer kept up with the increased CO2 production. There are some steps that we can take. Many require few changes on our part. Many are not expensive. Ignorance is not bliss, it only makes the matter worse.

Folks interested in this debate should find the work of Henrick Svensmark Ph.D., from Denmark who is studying solar and cosmic ray influence on global climate change that has regularly occurred over the last 200,000 years and which questions the base assumption of present CO2 claims. I personally interested in why the media press ignores obvious changes AGAIN in the weather patterns that appear linked to the changes in the sun that also defy past prediction models. It is telling that the press latches on to a late season hurricane is cited at “proof” of global warming yet inspection of historic evidence shows similar late season hurricanes striking New England and Long Island in the late thirties with similar devistating results unrelated to CO2 content. Next the “global warming” clique cherry pick Arctic sea ice data, or Antarctic sea ice, as certain proof of the exact certainty of their pet “global warming” hypothesis, which turns around and then increases the next year stuffing their 95% certainty right in the 5% trash bin. The real issue that needs to be addressed is the consumption of the earths resources by a population that will double in the next fifty years and the fact we are trashing the earth and the oceans in an unsustainable manner. “nuf said”.

One other thing, “convienently” IGNORED by you left-wingers – and that is that CHINA is BY FAR the biggest contributor to so-called “greenhouse gasses” (look it up on Wikipedia, they are nearly double our level).

They will continue their exponential rise and there is NOTHING we can do to stop them, short of nuking them off the map.

So even if we wanted to, we cannot SAVE THE WORLD. Those days are gone, sorry.

While China & parts of the U.S. shift to clean, low-carbon energy economies & ween themselves off coal.

“Coal has been the dominant fuel for power generation for a century because it is cheap, plentiful, and easy to ship and store. But it emits a host of pollution-forming gases and soot particles, and double the greenhouse gas emissions of its closest fossil fuel competitor, natural gas. Now utilities are relying more on natural gas to generate electricity as discoveries around the world boost the fuel’s supplies. The big, expanding economies of China and India are building more nuclear and hydro-electric power plants. Renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, while still a small fraction of the global energy mix, are growing fast as they get cheaper. And a greater emphasis on efficiency is tempering global growth in electricity demand.

“In the U.S., coal production is on track to fall to a 20-year low of just over 1 billion tons this year…. Last month the U.S. government held an auction for mining rights to a prime, coal-rich tract of land in Wyoming and didn’t attract a single bid.”

The numbers you list are CHILD’S PLAY. We’re talking TRILLIONS, not billions when it comes to the cost of SAVING THE WORLD…these droughts, which by the way have been going on for THOUSANDS OF YEARS, starting in Biblical Times, are NOTHING compared to the cost that Germans are now having to endure for buying into your president’s sick dream.

In any case, you are MORE THAN WELCOME to listen to China’s sweet talk (remember Tokyo Rose), but I’ll stick to the HARD NUMBERS of Wikipedia.

By the way, I’m not a negro, so you can stop calling me Danny-BOY, in your RACIST world.

Now, you just hold on there, laddie; we really don’t care whether you’re black or brown, yellow or pink, straight or gay or in-between, or Arab or Persian or Irish-Texican. But we do care that you come around here upchucking ignorance & uninformed nonsense all over the dang place.

First, if scientific evidence is to be believed, droughts have been occurring way before your legendary biblical times, impacting civilizations millennia before your jealous JHVA was an inkling of Abram’s imagination. And the scientific fact that droughts are getting longer & deeper & more frequent because of our unbridled carbon emissions doesn’t make it any holier, even should you long for the 2nd Coming & the Final Judgment.

And, if wiki is to be believed, Tokyo Rose, all dozen or so of her, sweet-spoke Japanese, not Chinese, no matter how you racially clump Asians together.

And you want big numbers, we have some pretty hefty sums to lay on you, son.

For starters, how’s over $1 trillion dollars in weather/climate disaster
damages & costs in the U.S. alone just since 1980?

“The U.S. has sustained 144 weather/climate disasters since 1980 where overall damages/costs reached or exceeded $1 billion (including CPI adjustment to 2013). The total cost of these 144 events exceeds $1 trillion.”

And how’s ~$2 trillion per year of climate-change related hurricane damages, real estate losses, energy & water costs, without considering the irreplaceable costs of human lives and health, species extinction, lost ecosystems, social conflict, and other impacts sound to you?

“New research shows that if present trends continue, the total cost of global warming will be as high as 3.6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Four global warming impacts alone—hurricane damage, real estate losses, energy costs, and water costs—will come with a price tag of 1.8 percent of U.S. GDP, or almost $1.9 trillion annually (in today’s dollars) by 2100.

“It is difficult to put a price tag on many of the costs of climate change: loss of human lives and health, species extinction, loss of unique ecosystems, increased social conflict, and other impacts extend far beyond any monetary measure. But by measuring the economic damage of global warming in the United States, we can begin to understand the magnitude of the challenges we will face if we continue to do nothing to push back against climate change. Curbing global warming pollution will require a substantial investment, but the cost of doing nothing will be far greater. Immediate action can save lives, avoid trillions of dollars of economic damage, and put us on a path to solving one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century.”

Climate change is not child’s play, Daniel, even should you live in your small world of video games & fundamentalist propaganda. It takes serious application of our adult reasoning powers & the fortitude to face the challenges & heavily invest in their solutions, & not hide in childish denial. Should we do nothing, for billions of suffering souls, the Second Coming won’t be soon enough.

What is Anthropomorphic Global Warming?
It is a false argument brought to the table,
that if people do not do enough things
to curb global warming, it will result in dieoffs
in the human population.

Then when those dieoffs occur
the AGW people can go through their I-told-you-so
routines.

The problem is not global warming. It’s overpopulation,
overpopulation, and more overpopulation.

Add in the factors of monumental western greed and war
and we have societal collapse.

In 2005 Syria had a population that was on the edge of
over-topping its potable water supply.
In 2009 drier than normal conditions forced less than
100,000 herders and other agricultural workers into the cities
where unemployment was already high.
A mild version of the Arab Spring resulted.
It was soon overshadowed by a civil war funded by outsiders.
Syria is now is a heap of trouble not because of global warming,
but because of overpopulation, greed and war.
The refugees of that conflict are now overpopulating
Lebanon and Jordan. Look for big dieoffs in Lebanon.

Egypt is overpopulated over 50% above
its carrying capacity. It is borrowing money
hand over fist just to feed its people.

And Israel whose population in 1948 was about 1 million has increased
to over 7 times that, in the last 70 years. It
is on a disaster waiting to happen.

Global warming is not what is going to kill all those people.
Overpopulation, greed and war will.

Confused because they are egregiously disinformed. Perhaps, if they tuned in a non-partisan channel, they could better learn what the hell & high water is really going on.

“Under the proposal, released Friday, any new plant that runs on coal would be permitted to emit only about half as much carbon dioxide as an average coal plant puts into the air today. … The EPA’s new proposal sets a limit for future power plants of 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour for large electricity generators that are powered by natural gas. And it sets a slightly higher limit of 1,100 pounds of CO2 per megawatt hour for small natural-gas generators and for coal-fired generators.”

1. What is the magnitude of the economic damage that it will do if left unchecked?
2. How much will it cost to mitigate global warming so that it will not cause these damages?

These are questions related to climate, agronomy, water science, international relations, and economics, among other areas. They are very, very difficult to answer. But answering them is vital because we need to answer this third question:

3. Should we try to prevent global warming, or should we adapt to it?

If the costs of mitigating global warming exceed the benefits, then we should let it happen, because adapting to its pain would be superior to stopping it. (Analogy: don’t cut off your hand to avoid the pain of a broken finger.)

And before any natural scientist tries to answer these questions–you are not expert enough to know these answers by yourself, be you a climatologist or physicist or chemist or whatever. Please partner with other scientists, including economists. This requires a huge level of collaboration that has been sorely lacking.

1. What is the magnitude of the economic damage that it will do if left unchecked?

Don’t forget the benefits that global warming will bring as well (e.g., longer growing seasons, some increase in primary productivity, increased shorelines in some areas, shorter trade routes if the Northern passage opens). Though most studies agree that the costs will outweigh the benefits, those should be included.

2. How much will it cost to mitigate global warming so that it will not cause these damages?

Here there is good news and bad news. Most climatologists agree that we are locked into a warming climate for at least the next century; that’s the bad news. The good news is that most of the things that we should do to reduce our carbon footprint are things that end up saving us money either directly (e.g., increased energy efficiency) or indirectly (e.g., stricter pollution standards that have been linked to improved health and lower health care costs).

3. Should we try to prevent global warming, or should we adapt to it?

This isn’t an “either/or” choice. We will have to adapt to the change we’ve already started but we can work to reduce any further change.

1. What is the magnitude of the economic damage that it will do if left unchecked?

For America, 3.6% of U.S. GDP overall.

1.8% of U.S. GDP or $271 billion per year by 2025 to $1.9 trillion per year by 2100 just from hurricane damage, real estate losses, energy & water costs.

“Global warming comes with a big price tag for every country in the world. The 80 percent reduction in U.S. emissions needed to stop climate change may not come cheaply, but the cost of failing to act will be much greater. New research shows that if present trends continue, the total cost of global warming will be as high as 3.6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Four global warming impacts alone — hurricane damage, real estate losses, energy costs, and water costs — will come with a price tag of 1.8 percent of U.S. GDP, or almost $1.9 trillion annually (in today’s dollars) by 2100. We know how to avert most of these damages through strong action to reduce the emissions that cause global warming. But the longer we wait, the more painful — and expensive — the consequences will be.”

2. How much will it cost to mitigate global warming so that it will not cause these damages?

Trillions of U.S. dollars less than what we save by taking action sooner than later.

“My research shows that there are indeed substantial net benefits from acting now rather than waiting fifty years. A look at Table 5-1 in my study A Question of Balance (2008) shows that the cost of waiting fifty years to begin reducing CO2 emissions is $2.3 trillion in 2005 prices. If we bring that number to today’s economy and prices, the loss from waiting is $4.1 trillion.”